


lay me down gently

by parrishsrubberplant (genus_species)



Category: God's Own Country (2017)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-03-13 18:05:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13576056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/genus_species/pseuds/parrishsrubberplant
Summary: “Bed,” Martin says. “Bed...big enough?”Gheorghe stays very still. Martin and Deidre know they’re together, but they mostly don’t talk about it. Johnny and Gheorghe go into Johnny’s room together, and they close the door, and that is that.He’s curious about what Johnny will say, though. They are fitting two men in a twin bed. It is small.“We make do,” Johnny says.“Could switch,” Martin says. “I’m not...needing...such a large mattress.”





	lay me down gently

Gheorghe doesn’t mean to eavesdrop. He’s still conscious of being an outsider here. It’s not just the couple of racists down at the pub, more the feeling of being an intruder into an established family unit.

It’s Martin’s farm, as much as it’s also Johnny’s, and--he doesn’t want to change too much, too fast. And even though he’s Johnny’s boyfriend (they had established that, on his second night coming back, sharing Johnny’s room. Johnny’s hands, smoothing over his ribs, and Johnny’s chest warm against his back. What is the word for lamb, what is the word for daffodil, what is the word for boyfriend. _Prieten,_ Gheorghe had said, twisting to see Johnny’s face. _Is that what I am to you?_ )

“Sleep well?” Martin asks. His second stroke still makes it difficult for him to speak. He has compromised by becoming even more economical in his language.

“Yeah,” Johnny says.

“Bed,” Martin says. “Bed...big enough?”

Gheorghe stays very still. Martin and Deidre know they’re together, but they mostly don’t talk about it. Johnny and Gheorghe go into Johnny’s room together, and they close the door, and that is that.

He’s curious about what Johnny will say, though. They are fitting two men in a twin bed. It is small.

“We make do,” Johnny says.

“Could switch,” Martin says. “I’m not...needing...such a large mattress.”

Gheorghe freezes, on the stairs. This seems like a conversation he shouldn’t walk into.

“I was thinking of buying a new one,” Johnny says. “The other is getting old."

It hits Gheorghe in the heart, unexpectedly. _I was thinking of buying a bed._ He knows Johnny wants him to stay. Johnny has told him. But this feels like something more, something permanent.

“What about...money?” Martin asks. 

Gheorghe decides it’s time to stop hiding on the stairs. He unclenches his fingers from around the banister and starts down again. “We’re getting some, for the cheese,” Johnny says. But he drops the subject.

Gheorghe eats his breakfast and drinks his tea. A bed, a big one, where they wouldn’t have to lie on top of each other. Not that he minds, the way they fold into one another now. He likes being close to Johnny.

He asks about it, when they’ve gone up to the pasture to rebuild another section of stone wall. They’re unstacking the section of fallen stones, preparing to stack them in a better, more close-fitted order. “A bed?”

“It’s small, the one we have now.”

“Yes.” Gheorghe moves a few stones.

“Wouldn’t be for a few months, anyway,” Johnny says. “Till we could take the time off, drive to the shop.”

Gheorghe imagines it, lying on a mattress next to Johnny. Deciding whether they want something more soft or hard. People looking at them, wondering what the Yorkshire farmer is doing, cuddled up to this gypsy.

“What would you do with the old one?”

“Charity shop, maybe.” Johnny bashes some chips off the stone and snuggs it in to fit with the others. “Might be a neighbor who needs it.”

“People might talk,” Gheorghe says, at last. He doesn’t know another way to say it, another way to talk about the way people outside of the Saxbys make him feel like he doesn't belong. Or try to. Certain things--sunrise, sheep, spring flowers--are the same, no matter what country you were born in. Only foolish people try to pretend differently.

There are some foolish people in Yorkshire.

“I don’t care,” Johnny says. He sets another stone on top of the wall. It doesn’t fit quite right. He turns it. “Do you?”

“Sometimes.” Gheorghe looks out over to where the sun is slipping behind some pearly clouds. The whole thing is bathed in translucent light. It’s like the rays from heaven on a church ceiling, diffuse and magical. Beautiful. Lonesome.

“We’d need to save up money anyway,” Johnny says.

“Save it for stud fees, for the cows,” Gheorghe says. “If Martin really doesn’t mind.” He wishes he hadn’t hid on the stairs, that he had had the courage to come into the kitchen and see Martin’s face.

Johnny shrugs. “So you were listening, this morning.” Gheorghe shrugs by way of answer. “That was him and my mum’s bed, and she left, so,” Johnny says. He hacks viciously at a bit of stone.

It’s a couple more days before they have the time and energy to make the switch. Deidre doesn’t say much about it. She strips all the sheets off the beds, and bundle them down into the washing machine. 

They take the mattresses off the beds, lean them against the walls.

Gheorghe helps take the bed frames apart, tapping with a hammer to loosen the side rails. Martin’s bed is heavy, made of brass, little medallions of flowers build into the headboard. Johnny’s bed frame is simpler, dark wood. Old, both of them.

They don’t really talk as they set up the beds. Gheorghe can’t help feeling guilty about it, like he’s stealing something. This is something different from suggesting an antibiotic, from saving an undersized newborn sheep, from making sheep’s milk cheese. Those are all changes to the farm, too, but this feels larger.

He and Johnny lever the box springs and then the mattresses through the narrow upstairs hallway. It’s not that they’re heavy, just awkwardly shaped. The mattress tries to flop over. They hold it by the rope handles at the sides.

Johnny gets the broom and sweeps up dust from under his bed.

At last, the beds are settled. Johnny’s room is full, bed and nightstand and wardrobe. Not much room for anything else.

Gheorghe sits on the edge of the bed, careful.

“Oh,” Johnny says. “I forgot, I got something for you, the last time I was in town.” He opens the drawer of the nightstand, hands Gheorghe a brown paper-wrapped rectangle.

Gheorghe opens it. It’s a small empty picture frame. He doesn’t understand, until he does.

“For your postcard,” Johnny says. “So it wouldn’t get bent at the corners, and you could, I don’t know. Put it up, somewhere you can see it.”

Gheorghe takes the back off the frame, takes his postcard from where it’s propped up against the lamp, and fits it in. He looks at Johnny. “Thank you.”

“What is it, anyway?”

“Mihai Oltenu,” Gheorghe says. “Romanian painter. It’s just a view from a high place, but it looks like home.” He sets the picture frame carefully on the nightstand, angling it so he can see it from the pillow.

Johnny touches the back of his hand lightly with two fingers.

Later, they are sleeping in their new, old bed, and Gheorghe moves, curling closer. He places the flat of his hand against the slow thump of Johnny’s heart, and something about it feels like home.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from a mishearing of the Mountain Goats song, "Dance Music" (I heard "let me down, let me down gently" as "lay me down...").
> 
> ...though there's quite a nice Locomotive song with this title.
> 
>  
> 
> [Come yell with me on Tumblr!](http://parrishsrubberplant.tumblr.com/)


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